A brown belt I don't normally train with ran class today and he did some warmups I enjoyed.

While jogging laps (which normally includes running sideways and backwards, heels up and knees up) he mixed it up with these:

Arms up - While running, raise and lower each arm over your head in time with your running. Your arms swing up and down in front of your body.

Skipping jumping jacks - While running, start skipping and clapping your head over your head and slapping your hips like you're doing jumping jacks.

Running slalom - The lead runner stop and the person behind them runs around them and stop. Then the next person zig zags around both of them and stops. The line of "obstacles" builds like this until everyone is standing still, at which point the person in the back starts running zig zags around everyone in front of him. Each time a new person is at the back of the line, they start running around anyone in front of them until the entire line is running like normal again.

Speed bumps - The leader of the line drops to the ground and lays across the path. The person behind him jumps over him, both feet in the air, and land on the other side, then drops down to the ground too. And so on. Once everyone is laying down, the last man on the line gets up and jumps over everyone. Each time a new person is made the last person, they get up and jump over whoever is still down. Once everyone is up again, they just keep running like normal.

Wall sprints - As the leader of the line gets to a corner of the mats, he calls out "Wall sprints!" then runs as fast as they can to the other side of the room. As everyone gets to this turn, they sprint to the other side of the room then continue the normal lap. Pick the longest side of the room to run so they have room to do it. Continue this for 3 laps.

He would break up the running by having us stop and do sets of 15 push-up. The first set was were diamon pushups, with out thumbs and fore fingers together in the middle of our chest. Then a set with our elbows tight to our ribs. Then a normal set. Then a set with our arms out wide.

He also did sets of ab exercises.

The first was where you just hold your shoulders off the mat like you're in the middle of a crunch and then constantly contract and release your abs. The range of motion isn't as much as in a normal sit-up or crunch, but felt like an isometric exercise since you're constantly flexing the muscles.

The second one he called something like "kickboxers". You sit on your butt with your feet off the floor. You straighten you legs and lay back, then sit up and pull your legs up. Don't let your feet touch the ground. You can post on the mat behind yourself for balance or if you want to be more advanced, try to do it with your hands by your head.

For the third, you laid down with your feet sticking straight up in the air. Then you would shoot your hips up as high as you could then lower them, keeping your legs pointing to the ceiling the entire time.

He did one set of 40 reps for the first two and 30 reps for the third. Then we'd jump up and keep running.

After we finished running laps, he had us do the normal forwards and backwards breakfalls and shrimping, but between each he added another exercise.

Bear walks - Bend over and put your hands on the mat. Walk down the mat on your hands and feet, without your knees touching the ground, and your butt up in the air.

Crab walks - Lay down then get on your hands and feet and lift your butt off the ground. Walk backwards down the mat like this.

Reverse shrimping - Lay down like with your knees bent. Stretch your legs and turn to one side, then use your heels to drag yourself down the mat as you walk on your shoulders. Stretch your hands over your head as you do them, like you're trying to create space and push someone off north-south.

I enjoyed all of these since they added some randomness to the normal warm-up and I hadn't done some of them before. I also found that mixing them into jogging broke up my breathing, which I think is important for a good workout for grapplers.

Interesting list. Mixing up the warm-ups is a great way to keep people interested, as well as working motor skills you might not think to work very often.

So far the strangest warm up technique I've come across is the sidewinder. Basically, you do the twist on the ground. Your back is flat on the mat in the starting position, and you rhythmically alternate lifting your hips and shoulders off the ground. If you get good at them, you end up flying down the mat using nothing but your abs.

Another good one is buddy carry suicides. That's fairly self-explanatory, so I won't go into detail.

Shrimps into granby rolls. These are fairly nice, as they can be manipulated to combine exercise with stretching the back muscles out (as well as increasing spinal flexibility).

I don't know what to call this next technique, because I forgot the name. So I'll dub it the Super Duper weird other reverse shrimp. You start out with a normal shrimp, but then you shift your hips through to the side that you have your foot planted on (the opposite side of what you normally do with a shrimp), then push off with that foot. It's hard to explain, but it's interesting.

Other weird warm ups I've had include: walking around like various animals for 20 minutes (alligator, bear, crab, inchworm, etc), doing yoga, and having push up, sit up, squat, and sprint races.

You might laugh at the walking around like various animals technique, and the person who convinced me to do it did design it for kids, but I'll be damned if it didn't give me a really good warm up.

There's just something wrong with a warmup that reads like a full-on workout routine...

Good exercises though.

We have a thing called "Frog walks" where you squat down as far as you can, with your hands behind your head, and walk. Takes a toll on your legs. Also "frog jumps", self explanatory.

There's just something wrong with a warmup that reads like a full-on workout routine...

Good exercises though.A quick 15-20 minute workout can smoke the living bejeesus out of you, which is usually a good thing.

Especially if you happen to be teaching a lot of newbie (read: Rowdy) white belts.

A quick 15-20 minute workout can smoke the living bejeesus out of you, which is usually a good thing.

Especially if you happen to be teaching a lot of newbie (read: Rowdy) white belts.

Who are dangerous to the other newbies unless a little tired, a littler slower. Although the stamina of recent college grads and high school students is pretty scary. Compared even to people in their 30's (imagine where I fit in the food chain at +50).

Also warming up loosens the body in general which is safer.

A very valid point.

Who are dangerous to the other newbies unless a little tired, a littler slower. Although the stamina of recent college grads and high school students is pretty scary. Compared even to people in their 30's (imagine where I fit in the food chain at +50).

Also warming up loosens the body in general which is safer.

A very valid point.

Stamina good or bad for college and high school students?

That stuff is great. I do that alot with Phil. He makes us do all variations of that.

Stamina good or bad for college and high school students?

In my experience to date, the high school, college, and recent college students who sign up for bjj are in awesome shape. I don't think that's because all members of that demographic are in excellent shape, but because the ones who are interested in bjj haven't let themselves get out of shape yet. (In addition there are newbies who are further from their "peak years" who have weight, stamina, and conditioning issues - although overall the people at the bjj class are trimmer than the adults at the local judo club and aikido club).

In my own case it's pretty depressing how much wear and tear I had let accumulate on my body.

Nothing broken or not working (not carrying forward sport or work injuries), it was just the gradual accretion of fat. For example, I am short (5' 6") and small boned, and so in high school I weighed just 120 pounds with no fat (or muscle)l.

By the end of college I had done more exercise to build muscle, and gotten up to 135 pounds with the addition of minor fat (pinch an inch at the waist).

HOWEVER from there on out it was a case of putting on fat without adding more muscle. For many, many years, I was able to "fake it" in my personal appearance due to my small frame - until I started a real desk job with no walking to work about 6 years, and from then until a couple of months ago, I was just "swelling" month by month and year by year. All the snacks at work brought by me or coworkers, birthday parties, sitting and more sitting.

Now I am in bjj, I'm getting my butt kicked regularly by my 135 pound counterparts, except they run closer to 150 pounds these days - a little taller, sut still lean and a generational difference in muscle. The 165 pounders can really pound me, not just with skill but with muscle as well, since the 165 pounds I had when I joined was mostly fat, but the 165 pounds they carry is almost all muscle.

So I've been cutting out snacks and sugar and weighing myself daily and dropped to 155 pounds and for the first time in years also dropped one belt notch.

My goal now is to hit 150, pause and take a breath, then work on 145. Then work on a careful eating program combined with weights to trade as much fat for functional muscle as I can.

My main motivation is a desire to succeed in bjj (and maybe in a couple of years compete in the sub 150 pound class) but also ward off the many health complications known to accompany fat.

I have NO philosophical objections to "tapping out" as often as required in class in order to stick it out and make progress. I realize now that if I had kept on my prior munchies/fat/television path, I would have been "tapping out" to death a LOT ealier than I probably have to.

Any you know what the best part is? No one is doing it for me. I am doing it for myself, every sweaty painful class I attend.

Sorry for meandering off your original straightforward question. But this thing about weight/muscle/stamina has been brewing and I finally had a chance to get it off my chest. The only GOOD fat is the fat on your opponent!

The club i go to switches up the warm-ups almost everyday. It's nice not knowing what to expect.

i am 20, and i take conditioning very serious... as someone who wishes to fight in a year or so, and pursue it seriously... a good warm up is crucial to any workout, not just before training. it should really only be 5-15 mins long, because then it is less of a warm up, and then more of a workout. it's goals whould be to limber the body and warm up the cardiovascular system, then dynamic stretches should be performed, then whatever excersice/s you are wanting to perform. after your training or working out, then you should perform static stretches.

switching up warmups is awsome, i agree... that way you don't fall into a rut, and it helps to warm up different areas of the body without overstraining a muscle group, especially if you train very often

i like the reverse shrimps and the sidewinder too, crocodile walks? anyone heard of these?

off topic, Just a question from a noob:
I know that shrimping helps to escape back to guard, but i never figured out what reverse shrimps are drilled for, that and the sidewinder, I hear different things like they're for getting outta side control or north south, but noones explained how it would work. Anyone care to enlighten me?